squalid
Extremely dirty and unpleasant.
Adjective
- Extremely dirty and unpleasant.
- [...] Mythologists describe Pan the son of Mercury (who was the God of Speech) with the upper part like a man, and the lower like a beast, to signifie that Truth is fair and comely, but a Lye squalid and Deformed. -...
- Showing or characterized by a contemptible lack of moral standards.
- a squalid attempt to buy votes
- Minister, I hardly think that we can exploit our Sovereign by involving her in some might call a squalid vote-grubbing exercise. - 1980 March 3, Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn, “The Official Visit”, in Yes, Minister, season...
- [A] demon is just what we’ve been needing for a long, long time for our squalid affairs, to gratify our squalid desires, the sort of demon, of course, who can be persuaded to believe that he is the demon who will take...
Origin
Etymology tree Latin squālus Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *-ōs Proto-Italic *-ōs Latin -or Latin squālor Latin squāleō Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der. Proto-Italic *-iðos Latin -idus Latin squāliduslbor. English squalid Learned borrowing from Latin squālidus, from squālēre (“to be rough or dirty”).
Forms
Derived
Noun
- Any member of the family Squalidae of dogfish sharks.
- Numerous diet studies on squalids have shown that members of this family tend to feed mainly on teleosts and cephalopods[…] - 2008, David A. Ebert, James A. Sulikowski, Biology of Skates, page 126:
Origin
From taxonomic name Squalidae.